YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County commissioners Monday approved spending

$2 million in county general fund money to move most Mahoning County communities to the Multi-Agency Radio Communication System, known as MARCS.

MARCS is a state-sponsored system that allows emergency responders from different agencies to communicate directly through their radios, instead of funneling communications through multiple dispatch centers, which costs time in an emergency.

MARCS will allow local law enforcement to tie into the MARCS system anywhere in Ohio, improving communications with local and regional agencies. It will allow all agencies that the Austintown-Boardman-Mahoning County Council of Governments serves to communicate with one another as well as other police, fire, and EMS agencies statewide, including the Ohio State Highway Patrol and Ohio Department of Transportation.

The county prosecutor’s office now will work on a contract between the Council of Governments and the state to join the MARCS system. The system is expected to be in place by June, said Chief Deputy William Cappabianca of the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office.

Of the $2 million, about $450,000 will be for “infrastructure repairs” to towers that the Council of Governments currently has, Cappabianca said. About $850,000 will be used to reprogram current radios to make them work on the MARCS system and to replace some other radios, he said.

The other $700,000 will be for other potential MARCS transition costs and will remain under the control of the county commissioners, Cappbianca said. The Council of Governments will have to ask permission to use it, he said.

The Council of Governments serves Canfield city police and fire, Craig Beach police and fire, Ellsworth Fire Department, Goshen Township, North Jackson, Lowellville, Mahoning County Task Forces, Mill Creek MetroParks, Beaver Township, Campbell, Coitsville, Lake Milton, New Middletown, Poland Township and Poland Village police, Springfield police and fire, Struthers, Washingtonville, Poland’s Western Reserve Joint Fire District, Youngstown and Youngstown State University.

The state will take over maintenance of the towers, but the county will have other costs to put other infrastructure in place to support MARCS, such as software upgrades for dispatch consoles, officials have said.

At Monday’s county commissioners meeting, Cappabianca said Austintown, Boardman and Mahoning County “joined together to create a radio system” six years ago. “We have done what I feel is a fantastic job over the past six years. But we have matured now to the point where we are ready for the state to come in, take over the tower system.”

Audrey Tillis, county administrator, said Austintown trustees already approved a resolution to move forward with the MARCS system, and Boardman will do so in the coming weeks.

“This is a great step for the county. I commend the commissioners and all of the trustees for moving forward in this direction,” Tillis said.

Monday was the last meeting for County Commissioner David Ditzler, and many county department heads, other county workers and elected officials thanked him for his service.

Ditzler, a Democrat, who has served three terms as county commissioner after serving 19 years as Austintown Township trustee, lost Nov. 5 to Republican Geno DiFabio by 1.86% of the vote.